A Scholar Watched NRA TV For 6 Months So You Wouldn't Have To

As the National Rifle Association — the most influential gun rights advocacy group in the U.S. — comes under pressure from victim groups and gun control advocates, internet companies like Amazon, Apple, and YouTube are finding themselves uncomfortably close to the center of the controversy. These are among the companies that currently stream the NRA’s official video channel, NRA TV.

In the world of online politics, it’s not unusual to find videos inciting hostility. On Feb. 12, just days before the Parkland shooting, one such YouTube video featured a pundit smashing a sledgehammer through a TV set that showed liberal commentators, later declaring, “If we want to take back this nation from socialists who are out to destroy it … you better believe we’ll be pushing the truth on them.” But that video was not the seething production of an obscure far-right blogger. It was the latest episode of the official channel of the NRA.

NRA TV is not merely a platform for promoting Second Amendment rights or engaging gun enthusiasts. As a researcher of online extremism, I’d contend it has become one of the web’s most incendiary hotspots for stoking outrage at liberal America, attacking perceived enemies like Black Lives Matter and the Women’s March, and promoting the message that America is under threat from the so-called “violent left” — an especially alarming term, coming from a gun lobby.

What Is NRA TV?

Given the channel’s association with the NRA, a newcomer to NRA TV might reasonably expect information on gun safety, Second Amendment rights and a community for firearms enthusiasts and collectors. Its focus is none of those things. Instead, visitors find a virtual hornet’s nest of hard-right politics.

In my work, I came across NRA TV while tracking far-right and far-left groups’ activity on Twitter. One such group had retweeted a video from NRA TV featuring host Dana Loesch calling the mainstream media “the rat bastards of the Earth,” whom she was happy to see “curb stomped.”

The acidic tone of NRA TV represents an astonishing evolution of an organization that began as a rifle club to promote marksmanship. Even the NRA of the 1980s, which ran TV ads on the right to bear arms, would be hard to recognize as a forebear to today’s version. My study of 224 NRA TV videos and tweets over two months in 2017 found that only 34 dealt with topics related to direct gun advocacy or gun ownership. The remaining 190, or about five out of every six posts, were trained on perceived political enemies, trading the core mission of gun rights for incessant attacks on “crazed liberals” and “hateful leftists.”

In a video that streamed to NRA TV’s 260,000 Twitter followers in August 2017, host Grant Stinchfield stated to his audience:

“What scares me more than the North Korean crazed tyrant? The violent left and the crazed liberals who lead them. They like North Korea also pose a clear and present danger to America … Make no mistake, the lying leftist media, the elitist cringe-worthy celebrities, and the anti-American politicians — who make up the violent left — don’t just hate President Trump, they hate you.”

The insinuation that left-wing forces are out to destroy the country by sabotaging its institutions is a demagogic refrain with echoes of the anti-communist McCarthy era. But it is particularly unsettling when it emanates from a lobby that simultaneously promotes the necessity of gun ownership. Which brings us back to Amazon.

Pulling The Plug

After another shooting at an American high school at the hands of a 19-year-old with an AR-15, the gun-control advocacy movement has turned its attention to its chief opponent, the NRA. The strategy is to dislodge the influence of the NRA by going after its support system. That has led activists to Amazon, Apple, Roku, and other services that stream NRA TV content. While other companies support the NRA financially, these internet giants provide perhaps a more valuable currency in their prominent platforms that allow the NRA to distribute its message.

The growing wave of consumer activists has effectively placed the internet’s biggest gatekeepers in the middle of America’s hyperpolarized gun debate. As web hosts, their power to amplify or quiet controversial messages is unmatched in the modern media landscape. But in many ways, this is not strictly a gun issue. Rather, a closer look at NRA TV suggests that this is also an issue of community standards, which are well within a web host’s domain.

And in recent months, YouTube and Twitter have each demonstrated a willingness to enforce stricter terms of service prohibiting hateful, dangerous, or abusive material from their networks. So the real question that these internet companies now face is whether an NRA tirade about American liberals posing a “clear and present danger” is legitimate gun advocacy or barefaced incitement.